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The 


Chri^Han  Conception 
of  Property 


By 

JOHN  A.  MARQUIS 

Moderator  of  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church  in  the  United  States  of  America 


OCTOBER 
19  16 


:s3i 


( 


The  Chri^ian  Conception 
of  Property 

•  *  T- 

Property  and  its  management  is  one  of  the  great  questions  of 
our  day,  and  Christianity  must  have  something  to  say  about  it.  We 
are  in  an  age  when  wealth  is  increasing  at  a  prodigious  rate,  ami': 
connected  with  its  increase  as  well  as  with  its  possession  many  knotty 
and  serious  problems,  most  of  them  moral,  have  arisen.  There  has*; 
never  been  a  day  since  men  began  to  own  things  that  they  have"" 
owned  as  many  as  they  do  now.  The  wealth  of  the  Phiited  States  in" 
the  last  25  years  has  increased  enormously  and  will  probably  keep 
on  doing  so  with  even  greater  rapidity.  As  time  goes  by  inventive"^ 
men  will  continue  to  find  new  sources  of  wealth  in  unsuspected' 
places.  Coal  was  once  black  rock  with  no  value  whatever ;  now  it 
is  wealth  of  vast  value.  The  waterfall  was  once  a  sight,  a  thing 
beautiful  and  wonderful  to  look  at;  now  it  is  so  much  power  to  be 
capitalized  and  sold  on  the  market.  Iron  ore  beds  were  once  so 
much  unproductive  land;  now  they  are  mines  of  fabulous  wealth  ;  an(l  . 
so  on  over  the  whole  face  of  nature.  The  more  we  know  about  our 
earth  the  richer  it  becomes  to  us.  We  cannot  stop  this  and  would.  , 
not  if  we  could.  It  is  part  of  the  mind  of  God  for  us.  We  were 
told  in  Eden  to  take  the  earth  and  subdue  it  and  rule  it,  and  every 
triumph  of  science  over  nature  is  a  step  forward  in  the  program  of 
Paradise. 

There  is  No  Blessing  So  Blessed  that  a  Curse  Does  Not  Lurk  On  Its 

Offside 

But  like  everything  else  wealth  is  attended  with  difficulty  and 
travail.  The  devil  is  watching  it  as  well  as  the  angels  and  will  turn 
it  to  account  if  he  can,  and  has  had  large  success  in  doing  it  hitherto. 
Property  in  its  primal  intent  and  in  its  essential  nature  is  a  God- 
bestowed  blessing,  but  like  every  other  blessing  will  darken  down 
into  a  curse  if  it  is  not  used  according  to  the  mind  of  the  great  Giver, 
for,  as  some  one  has  said,  there  is  no  blessing  so  blessed  that  a  curse 
does  not  lurk  on  its  off-side. 

So  out  of  wealth  and  the  thirst  for  its  possession  there  has 
l)roceeded  the  vilest  troup  of  crimes  and  meannesses  that  have  ever 
disgraced  our  race;  envy,  strife,  brutality,  war,  murder,  worldliness 
and  neglect  of  God  without  measure.  We  are  learning  that  one  of 


the  most  dangerous  things  that  can  happen  to  society  is  for  the 
wrong  kind  of  a  man  to  get  rich.  Wealth  in  the  wrong  hands  means 
vulgarity  and  Godlessness  sooner  or  later.  Whence  came  strikes, 
war  between  capital  and  labor,  social  bitterness,  false  standards  of 
success,  hatred  of  the  poor  toward  the  rich  and  contempt  of  the  poor 
by  the  rich,  disregard  of  God  and  inhumanity  to  man?  Out  of 
property,  not  all  of  it  but  a  lot  of  it.  It  creates  artificial  distinctions 
that  cuts  society  in  two,  and  that  try  as  we  will  we  cannot  keep  out 
of  the  Church  of  God.  It  is  the  source  of  more  of  the  world’s  un- 
brotherliness  than  any  other  one  thing,  or  all  other  things. 

So  the  world  needs  a  Christian  philosophy  of  wealth,  and  needs 
it  sadly.  What  is  the  mind  of  Christ  about  this  thing  so  potent  of 
blessing  and  yet  so  productive  of  devilishness?  We  are  warranted 
in  assuming,  as  Christians  we  must  assume,  that  the  evil  twist  that 
has  been  given  to  it  is  because  we  have  left  Christ  out  of  account  in 
handling  it. 

Not  the  Extravagance  of  the  Mohammedan  But  the  Way  the 
Christian  Acts  With  His  Money  that  Pinches 

More  than  this,  a  vast  proportion  of  the  world’s  wealth  is  in  the 
possession  of  people  who  call  themselves  Christians,  the  very  people 
over  whom  the  Church  has  most  influence  and  for  whose  beliefs  and 
behavior  she  is  most  responsible.  It  is  not  pagan  property  that  is 
vexing  society  today,  or  at  least  it  is  not  property  in  pagan  lands.  It 
is  almost  entirely  a  Christian  problem,  for  an  amazing  share  of  the 
worldly  goods  of  our  planet  is  in  Christian  hands.  We  are  not 
shamed  by  the  overfed  worldliness  of  the  Chinaman  or  the  vulgar 
extravagance  of  the  Mohammedan  or  the  financial  tyranny  of  the 
Hindu  or  even  by  the  diamond  bespattered  shirt-front  of  the  Hebrew. 
It  is  the  way  the  Christian  is  acting  with  his  money  that  is  pinching 
us.  It  is  a  home  problem,  a  family  affair,  and  we  need  only  to  look 
behind  our  own  door  to  see  how  much  linen  is  to  be  washed.  When 
Christian  people  extend  their  Christianity  to  their  property  the  rest 
of  mankind  will  not  need  to  concern  us. 

Christ  Was  Not  an  Economist 

Now  be  it  said  before  we  go  further  that  Christ  was  not  an 
economist.  He  was  supremely  a  teacher  of  religion.  Socialists  and 
capitalists  have  both  claimed  Him,  but  neither  has  any  right  to  him 
except  to  submit  to  him  and  obey  him  like  other  sinners. 

But  his  religion  infuses  and  controls  all  life,  and  because  Christ 
was  a  teacher  of  religion  of  necessity  he  had  something  to  say  on 


economics.  Because  man  must  have  food  to  eat  and  raiment  to  put 
on  and  houses  to  live  in  Christianity  must  have  a  word  to  say  about 
how  these  necessities  are  obtained  and  how  they  are  used.  They 
belong  to  life  and,  therefore,  are  in  the  domain  of  His  religion.  But 
beyond  this  our  Lord  had  a  great  deal  to  say  to  people  who  had  a 
surplus,  the  prosperous  of  his  day.  He  did  not  talk  to  millionaires 
for  there  were  none,  but  to  the  prosperous  farmers  and  merchants 
and  shepherds  who  were  about  him.  Then,  as  now,  there  were 
people  who  had  vastly  more  food  than  they  could  eat,  more  raiment 
than  they  needed  to  put  on,  and  for  this  reason  they  were  an  espec¬ 
ially  needy  lot  of  sinners  and  called  for  extra  instruction  and  warn¬ 
ing. 

Money  is  ‘Tainted”  Quite  as  Much  in  the  Way  It  is  Used  As  in  the 

Way  It  is  Acquired 

Christ  was  as  much  concerned  about  how  people  used  their 
money  as  about  how  they  made  it.  It  could  be  “tainted”  by  wrong 
use  or  non-use  as  well  as  by  vicious  methods  of  acquiring  it.  He  had 
no  panacea  by  which  the  financial  tyrannies  and  economic  inequal¬ 
ities  and  injustices  of  the  world  could  be  rectified.  But  while  he 
laid  down  no  program  he  did  enunciate  some  principles  that  must 
govern  all  life,  the  possession  of  wealth  included.  Chief  among 
them  was  his  law  of  love  and  service.  Love  in  his  view  does  not  ex¬ 
ist  unless  it  expresses  itself  in  sacrifice  and  service.  A  selfish  love 
is  unthinkable.  Because  he  loved  men  he  gave  up  his  life  for  them. 
He  had  to  do  it.  The  fact  of  Blis  loving  made  the  cross  inevitable. 
This  law  governed  the  use  of  His  wealth,  and  it  must  govern  the 
use  the  disciple  makes  of  all  he  has.  The  man  who  witholds  any 
part  of  his  life  from  the  operation  of  this  law  has  not  caught  the 
spirit  of  Christ  and  is  none  of  his.  His  property,  like  the  talents  of 
his  mind,  the  graces  of  his  heart  and  the  energies  of  his  body,  is  not 
owned  for  himself  but  for  the  good  he  can  do  with  it. 

Riches  Are  Always  a  Needle’s  Eye  Proposition  Unless  Held  in  Trust 

In  the  Christian  view  of  things,  then,  no  man  owns  anything. 
We  are  not  our  own  but  are  bought  with  a  price.  As  He  surrended 
Himself  to  us,  so  must  we  surrender  all  to  Him  and  the  uses  of  His 
kingdom.  We  may  put  one-tenth  into  the  treasury  for  specifically 
religious  and  benevolent  uses,  but  the  nine-tenth  we  keep  is  as  much 
His  as  the  one-tenth  we  give  away.  We  are  stewards  not  owners. 
On  the  assumption  that  I  love  humanity  as  much  as  Christ  loves  me 
what  shall  I  do  with  my  money?  No  Christian  can  escape  this  ques- 


tion.  The  only  way  we  can  give  to  Christ  is  to  give  to  the  world 
for  which  Christ  died.  He  made  this  very  clear  when  he  was  here. 
Wealth  has  no  right  to  call  itself  Christian  unless  it  submits  to  this 
law.  It  is  the  acid  test  of  our  Christian  quality.  Riches  are  always 
a  needle’s  eye  proposition  unless  they  are  held  and  used  as  a  trust  for 
Christ  and  in  no  other  way. 

Wealth  is  Given  the  Chance  of  a  Thousand  Years  to  Save  Itself 

Jesus  never  looked  on  money  as  a  primary  good,  a  thing  to  be 
sought  and  possessed  for  its  own  sake.  When  it  is  wanted  for  its 
own  sake,  as  an  end  instead  of  a  means  to  do  good,  it  becomes  a 
snare  and  a  menace.  It  blots  out  the  sight  of  God,  dulls  the  con¬ 
science  and  blunts  and  dwarfs  the  whole  spiritual  nature.  “How 
hardly  shall  they  that  have  riches  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God” ; 
riches  that  are  only  riches  and  not  a  means  for  carrying  out  the  lov¬ 
ing  purposes  of  the  Father.  Without  the  right  motive  behind  it,  the 
motive  of  love  and  service,  wealth  is  like  fire  arms  and  edged  tools 
in  the  hands  of  children,  a  source  of  danger  both  to  ourselves  and 
the  community.  The  only  way  it  can  be  saved  from  harmfulness  is 
to  employ  it  for  others  in  accordance  with  the  will  of  Christ. 

Christianity  does  not  decry  wealth ;  it  only  insists  that  it  be  kept 
in  its  right  place ;  as  an  instrument  for  promoting  the  kingdom  of 
heaven.  God  has  given  it  a  worthy  place  in  his  campaign  for  the 
world  when  it  submits  itself  to  Him,  It  is  a  necessary  factor  in  the 
program  of  Christ,  and  never  more  so  than  today.  There  is  at  this 
hour  a  door  of  dignity  and  honor  and  service  open  to  wealth  never 
beheld  before.  God  is  giving  it  the  chance  of  a  thousand  years  to 
save  itself.  Men  of  means,  big  and  little,  have  an  opportunity  to 
make  their  gifts  tell  for  Christ  and  world  redemption  possessed  by 
no  other  generation  of  Christians  the  sun  has  seen. 

Money-Making  is  the  Genius  of  the  Age 

The  Church  has  always  made  use  of  the  salient  characteristics  of 
the  epochs  thru  which  she  was  passed  to  advance  her  purposes  and 
push  her  campaign.  Witness  how  she  turned  to  account  the  spirit 
of  discovery  and  adventure  that  followed  the  voyages  of  Columbus 
to  America;  the  use  she  made  of  the  printing  press  and  the  revival 
of  learning;  the  philosophic  speculation  of  the  i6th  and  17th  cen¬ 
turies;  the  tidal  wave  of  liberty  and  popular  government  of  the  i8th 
century,  and  so  on.  We  are  a  moneymaking  age.  Our  men  have  a 
genius  for  it  possessed  by  none  who  have  preceded  them.  Has 


J 


1 


Christ  tid- claim' oh  this' marvelous  girt  for  'aGq'uisitiohPnls  Christian¬ 
ity  to  make  no  signal  use  of  this  outstanding,  unique  feature  of  our 
day?  If  not  it  will  be  a  dead  day,  a  truly  dark  age  fn  the  history  of 
oun  world  and  the  kingdom  of  our  Lord.  But  let  the  Christian  coiv 
ception  of  serving  rather  than  of  being  served,  of  givings  not  hoard¬ 
ing,  have  its  way  and  this  will  be  the  brightest  day  mankind  has  seen 
since  Christ  went  on  high. 

*  Let  the  pulpit  bear  down  on  this.  The  Church  does  not  want 
her  people  to  make  less  rnoney,  but  to  keep  less  of  it  and  to  realize 
what  they  have  it  for,  .to  show  their  love  for  Christ  by  it  and  to  use 
it  as  He  used  His  own  life,  not  for  His  own  sake  but  for  .the  sake  of 
the  world. 

Did  Zaccheus  Restore  Only  His  Wrongful  Gains? 

Let  us  learn  and  teach  that  no  man  can  catch  the  spirit  of  Christ 
without  awaking  to  the  obligation  money  imposes.  As  soon  as 
Zaccheus  got  a  glimpse  at  the  meaning  of  Christ  he  thought  of  his 
money  and  what  he  should  do  with  it.  He  immediately  proposed  to 
do  the  thing  he  felt  his  Master  would  want  done.  As  soon  as  he  had 
a  Christian  experience  he  loosened  up,  a  genuine  mark  of  Christian 
experience  ever  since.  His  idea  was  very  rudimentary,  to  be  sure.  Of 
course  he  had  no  business  keeping  mpney  he  had  obtained  wrong¬ 
fully,  and  must  restore  it.  But  we  imagine  he  was  not  long  in  the 
Christian  life  until  he  learned  that  Christ  had  claims  on  the  money 
he  had  gotten.honestly,  and  if  he  were  going  to  be  Christ’s  he  must 
loosen,  up  there  also. 

Nothing  was  said  about  how  the  Rich  Young  Ruler  came  by  his 
riches.  It  is  assumed  that  they  were  legitimate.  But  Christ  made  it 
clear  that  it  was 'not  legitimate  for  him  to  hold  them  while  there 
were  poor  to  be  helped  and  his  own  soul  wUs  being  damaged. 

There  is  No  Blessing  By  Itself  in  Being  Rich 

There  is  no  blessing  per  se  in  being  rich.  On  the  contrary 
there  is  distinct  danger  in  it.  The  blessing  comes  from  making  the 
right  use  of  it.  We  must  make  it  serve  in  order  to  make  it  safe,  safe 
for.  ourselves  and  safe  for  society.  One  of  its  misuses  is  that  it  is 
made  a  means  to  buy  service  rather  than  to  render  service.  The 
world’s  idea  has  always  been  that  the  more  people  a  man  has  work¬ 
ing  for  him  the  greater  he  is ;  the  Christian  idea  is  that  the  more 
people  he  is  working  for  the  greater  he  is.  There  is  nothing  blessed 
about  commanding  service.  On  the  contrary  it  is  likely  to  vulgarize 
and  cheapen.  The  blessing  is  in  rendering  it.  Wealth  in  the  Chris¬ 
tian  view  is  simply  so  much  opportunity  to  serve. 


i  Not  the  Red  Flag  But  the  Cross  is  the  Solvent  of  Economic  Ills 

It  needs  to  be  preached  also  that  in  this  Christian  conception  of 
property,  and  there  alone,  is  to  be  found  the  solvent  oCthe  serious 
econornic  and  social  problems  confronting  our  generation,  and  they 
are  acutely  serious.  Wealth  must  solve  them  for  wealth  has  created 
them.  It  is  not  the  mind  of  Christ  that  the  wrongs  of  society  should 
be  righted  by  the  poor  rising  up  and  confiscating  the  property  of  the 
rich.  Instead  He  laid  it  on  the  rich  that  they  should  realize  their 
responsibility  and  use  their  wealth  so  as  not  only  to  right  wrong  but 
avoid  it  by  installing  righteousness.  In  the  Christian  conception  of dhe 
matter  the  rich  are  responsible  for  the  poor,  for  we  are  all  respon¬ 
sible  "'for  each  other.  The  burden  of  the  weak' is  on-'' the-  strong; 
Wealth’ can  meet  the  conditions  that  have  arisen  out  of  it  by  sub¬ 
mitting  itself  to  the  Christ  law  of  love  and  service,  an'd  if  it  do6s  not 
it  confronts  danger  every  hour.  The  red  flag  is  ceaselessly  before  it. 


The  Alternative — Christianized  Wealth  dr  Barrabas  the  Anarchist 

Which  of  the  twain  will  we  have?  Christianized  wealth  or 
paganized  disorder  and  anarchy?  The  Jews  before  Pilate  rejected 
Christ  and  chose  Barrabas  the  anarchist.  Are  we  confronted  with 
the  same  alternative?  Is  wealth  in  America  making  the  same  choice? 
Many  earnest  souls  think  so..  Explosive  materiaClies  .beneath,  the 
social  surface  and  fires  of  discontent  and  resentment  and  bitterness 
are  smouldering  perilously-  near.  ^  Whether  they  ever  break  ^out  to 
the,  disruption  of  society  is  for.  the -men? of  wealth,  more  than  ^any 
other>Glass  to  decide.  The  only  way  they  can  save  thesmselvesjs,  to 
make  their  wealth  sacrificial  and  lay  it  on  Christ’s  altar  oC  love  , and 
service.  There  is  grave  reason  to  fear. that  the  .Christian  grace  of 
self-denial  is  a  lost  art  in  America.  .We  have  grown  so,  fat  and  pros¬ 
perous  that  we  have  forgotten -the  .meaning  of  sacrifice,  and, such  a 
soil  cannot  grow  great  Christians.  When  society  in^  the  past  has 
gotten  into  this  condition  God  has  uprooted  it  and  pushed  men  out 
among  the  thorns  and  thistles  to  begin  over  again,  as, He  .drove  the 
first  pair  from  Eden  when  they  began  to  .use  it  for  their  own  induU 
gence. 


The  Heritiage  of  War— for  America  a  Soul  ,  Seared  and  Encased  , in  a 

Bloated  Pocketbook  "  , 

It  is  not  only  hard  for  a  rich  man  to  get  into  heaven  but  it  seems 
equally  hard  for  him  to  know  what  is  going  on  in  the  world  beneath 
him.  As  he  grows  richer  he  grows  remote  from  his  less  fortunate 


fellows,  and  few  men  of  wealth  are  aware  of  the  mutterings  and 
scowls  around  them.  Christ  knows  the  common  people  better  than 
any  captain  of  industry  the  world  has  ever  seen,  and  when  He  says 
‘‘sell  what  thou  had  and  give,  take  up  the  cross  of  sacrifice  and  deny 
thyself”  He  is  simply  pointing  out  the  path  to  safety.  Our  fear  for 
America  is  that  while  Europe  is  suffering  and  sacrificing  in  the 
throes  of  her  awful  war  we  are  merely  content  to  make  money  out 
of  the  world’s  travail.  If  this  be  so  we  will  come  out  of  the  war 
vastly  worse  than  Europe,  for  her  people  will  receive  the  refinement 
and  chastening  that  always  result  from  sacrifice  and  suffering  while 
our  portion  will  be  a  seared  soul  encased  in  a  bloated  pocket-book. 
Jesus  Christ  cannot  do  anything  for  us  without  the  law  of  the  Cross. 
We  might  as  well  expect  electricity  to  light  our  houses  without  wires 
or  lamps  as  to  expect  Him  to  save  us  from  our  perils  without  the 
spirit  and  the  fact  of  sacrifice. 

Love  and  Service;  Confiscated  Wealth  and  Social  Disruption — 

Which? 

So  we  come  again  to  the  old  alternative  of  Pilate : — which  of  the 
twain  will  ye  have  released  unto  you?  Jesus  with  His  sacrificial  law 
of  love  and  service,  or  confiscated  wealth  and  social  disruption?  The 
choice,  we  repeat,  does  not  lie  with  the  agitator  but  with  the  man  of 
means.  It  turns  on  how  far  he  is  willing  to  be  Christian  with  his 
wealth.  Will  he  go  the  whole  length,  or  like  the  Rich  Young  Ruler 
will  he  turn  away  sorrowful  but  doomed?  The  responsibility  is  his. 
You  can  no  more  save  wealth  without  Jesus  Christ  than  you  can  save 
souls  without  Him.  Apart  from  Him  it  is  bound  to  turn  suicide  and 
destroyer.  All  down  the  ages  it  has  eaten  the  heart  out  of  every  na¬ 
tion  and  every  social  condition  it  has  dominated,  and  it  will  do  it  for 
us  unless  it  is  held  and  used  in  the  spirit  of  the  Master.  God  cannot 
afford  to  let  it  survive  unless  he  is  allowed  to  control  it.  This  is  the 
lesson  of  history  as  well  as  of  the  Bible. 

Furthermore,  wealth  is  in  a  mind  today  to. listen  to  this  sort  of 
preaching.  It  is  more  serious  minded,  more  sensitive  to  responsi¬ 
bility  than  ever  before,  and  waits  to  be  led.  The  arrogant  rich  are  a 
distinctly  diminishing  company.  Let  the  Church  do  her  duty  and  in 
love  declare  the  will  of  Christ,  and  all  this  tremendous  power  can  be 
made  constructive  by  being  laid  at  the  feet  of  Him  whose  right  it  is 
to  rule  it. 


Vol.  XVII 


THE  COE  COLLEGE  COURIER 

Entered  in' the  postoffice  at  Cedar  Rapids.  Iowa,  as  second  class  mail  matter 


Number  3 


